


Homecoming

by TheTriggeredHappy



Series: Running Blind [4]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, they’re so very in love, this is the single sappiest shit i’ve ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 22:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18647737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/TheTriggeredHappy
Summary: Spy returning home, however briefly.





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> [[this is a very late b-day gift for Gee, overall coolkid and primary ramblefriend when it comes to sappy spy/ma angst and fluff. sorry it’s so late but ily]]

 

 

 

When the knock on her door came, she was only somewhat confused.

 

Marie Nicole “Ma” O’Connell, direct parent of eight, grandmother of over a dozen, and adoptive mother of half the population of South Boston, got a lot of unexpected visitors. She had one son who still lived within reasonable walking distance of her, and so sometimes that son’s kids would walk to her house in fair weather after school to visit (and try and sneak away the various snacks she kept on hand). And aside from that, there were quite a few people who would drop by and visit her on occasion, some of them friends from church, some of them just friends or good acquaintances or past co-workers from the assorted jobs she’d had over the years. She was exceptionally well-connected on the premise of sheer charisma and renown good sense.

 

But it was, admittedly, peculiar that she would be getting a visitor at that precise time. It was relatively early—nowhere near any sort of lunch break time—on a weekday, and the weather was less than ideal, having settled somewhere in the realm of muggy with just enough of a drizzle to be inconvenient. She couldn’t think of any reason someone would be visiting, especially unannounced. Generally she would be using this time of day to run errands, and do various housework, and in fact had been planning to leave in about twenty minutes. As she made her way to the door, glancing at the mirror to make sure she was presentable, she pondered who it could possibly be.

 

She opened the door and processed first the mass of flowers shielding her guest from view, and then who surely would be carrying them.

 

“Hello, my dear,” her husband said, lowering the massive bouquet of bright red roses just enough to give her a sheepish smile over it.

 

He rushed to shift them all into one arm as she practically jumped to embrace him, her breath knocked from her in an instant. “Marcel!” she cried, voice hushed, many different emotions welling up in her chest at once, all overwhelmingly good. “You’re here! Why are you here? You didn’t call ahead!”

 

“I know,” he said, trying his best to return her embrace, planting a kiss on the top of her head, and she could feel the tension melting from him like butter in a pan, relaxing almost instantly in her hold. “I cannot stay for long, _mon chou_ , but—“

 

“You can _never_  stay for long,” she complained, holding him tighter.

 

He sighed lightly, kissing the top of her head again. “I know, _cherie_. I know. But I am here, at least for now.”

 

She pulled back, and noted the way he shifted to carry the flowers in both hands again. “That’s... so many flowers,” she marveled.

 

“I procured even more as an additional apology for arriving unannounced,” he said, a bit sheepish again. “And for their being late.”

 

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a stern look. “Nearly scared me half to death, y’know,” she chided.

 

He ducked his head, guilt flashing across his features, but when he glanced up at her again after a second, eyebrows tilted just slightly up, she knew she couldn’t stay mad for long.

 

She took the flowers and moved inside towards the kitchen where she kept a vase. Back when Marcel worked independently and would regularly leave on “business trips”, if he was ever gone for longer than a week, or gone longer than he was supposed to be, he would always return and bring home with him a bouquet of flowers to apologize for making her worry. When he’d disappeared—properly, to the point where even she didn’t know where he was—and didn’t come back or make contact with her for a long, long time, she’d always had a romantic vision in her mind, especially when times were particularly hard, of him showing back up on her doorstep with a bouquet and the sweet little smile that he only ever wore when he was with her and their family.

 

Then one day, about four years prior, a young man (certainly no older than his late teens, only a bit younger than her youngest son) showed up with a delivery of flowers from “a long-time admirer”.

 

The orders continued to arrive every week at nearly the same time, and she dared to hope at what it might mean. Two months down the road, the delivery boy (who by then she’d become something of a friend of) commented that he wished the person who sent them would set up a recurring order instead of calling in individually every single time.

 

He wasn’t the one handling the orders, he said when pressed, but his coworker had commented on it.

 

She dared to hope.

 

One day, the flowers didn’t arrive until early evening, this time with a very different delivery person, and that guilty little dream came true. Exactly the way she’d dreamed it, except perhaps that his smile was much more watery than she’d imagined, tears threatening to spill over at any moment.

 

Marcel (and she was asked not to refer to him by name in public if possible, to instead refer to him by her various pet names if she could) had a lot of explaining to do, but one thing they settled on after nearly two days of on and off discussion was this: she wanted some kind of consistent communication from him. If not calling her, then something else. She needed to know he was okay. She needed to know that he was safe and alive. After two decades of disappearance, of not hearing anything at all, she didn’t think she could handle being left to wonder if he was dead or alive, not again. It was decided that the flower deliveries would continue, as a way for her to be sure that he was okay, even if he couldn’t talk to her, or otherwise visit.

 

There were a few occasions when he missed making his call, always followed by excessive apologies during his next phone conversation with her. She always forgave him.

 

She _always_  forgave him.

 

By the time she’d put the flowers in the designated vase with water (it threatened to tip over from the sheer volume of them, but she figured it would be fine) Marcel had gone and flicked the blinds closed, and removed his mask, and set about fixing his wayward hair in the reflection of one of the pots hanging against the wall.

 

She moved over and leaned up onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek, and he bent down to allow her easier access, smiling. She laid one, two, three kisses across his cheek, a lipstick trail from beside his ear to beside his nose, and promptly ruffled his hair back out of order.

 

He laughed, bending further to scoop her up into another embrace, nuzzling into her hair. “I love you,” he said softly, more softly than she was sure anyone else was allowed to hear from him, and it made her glow.

 

“I love you too,” she replied easily, and just as sincerely. “I’m just worried that you’re not here for a happy reason.”

 

He exhaled. “My dear, you know that any time I see you, I am happy. Is that not enough reason?” he asked, turning his head to lie a kiss at her temple.

 

“Not without calling first,” she replied, tilting her head to allow him easier access. “You always call first if it’s just a visit, and sometimes when it isn’t. You’re worried about somethin’, and needed me around while you figured it out.”

 

“You know me,” he noted, pulling back enough to look at her, expression somber now.

 

“Better than anyone,” she agreed, stroking a thumb over his cheek.

 

He looked at her for a few moments, slowly relaxing again, his hands remaining there on her waist as she fiddled with his tie with the hand not holding his cheek. “I need to come clean,” he finally said, tone solemn. “I... I _want_  to come clean. To the boys. All of them.”

 

She stopped fiddling. “What?” she asked, eyes widening just a touch. “Really?”

 

He nodded, deliberately keeping eye contact.

 

“That’s... sudden,” she noted hesitantly. “You’re sure?”

 

He nodded again. “I’ve already decided. I just...” He shook his head, pulling her close again. “I’ve been lying for so long, _mon chou-fleur_. I’m afraid I might not know how to tell the truth anymore.”

 

“You tell _me_  the truth,” she pointed out.

 

He snorted half a laugh. “You’re different. You’ve always been different. That’s one of the millions of reasons I wanted so badly to marry you, my dear.”

 

“I know,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice.

 

He pulled back enough to kiss her, properly, gingerly, as if even now he was worried he would do something wrong. As if they hadn’t kissed a few thousand times before. As if there was anything left for him to do wrong, anything she wouldn’t forgive him for, curse her soft heart. It took only moments to become a breathless thing, leaving her with a light head and him with weak knees.

 

They pulled apart for a moment, and she couldn’t help but giggle at the picture he made. Hair ruffled, eyes dazed, lips slightly parted, a trail of lipstick leading across his cheek and more smeared on his lips now.

 

“Why’d you change your mind?” she finally asked, one hand pressing over his left shoulder, slipping beneath his lapels to feel for his heartbeat.

 

He sighed, gaze dropping, sobered again. “I... I worry,” he said softly. “I worry that if I continue to wait, continue to stall, that... that something may happen, and I will never have my chance to make peace. Your boys here are all fairly safe, that I know, but... I may not be. And... our youngest may not be. And I just...” He carded fingers through her hair, shaking his head slightly, a vulnerability there in his eyes. “My dear, I don’t know what I would do if something happened. It would haunt me. I know it would.”

 

“You’ve already decided, haven’t you?” she asked quietly, gently. “You’ve been thinkin’ about this for a long time.”

 

He nodded, blinking hard, looking just off to one side of her.

 

She cupped his cheek, tilting his face back towards her. “Sweetheart, you know I’ll support you, in whatever you choose to do. And help if I can. But please, just...” She took a breath, tilting onto her toes again to give him a kiss on the cheek thus far unstained, and in return he gave her a watery smile. “I miss you. I just... I miss you. Whatever you do, can you please try and visit more?”

 

“As often as I can,” he promised, brushing her hair back from her face to kiss her on the forehead again. “Every chance I can find. Even if it isn’t for very long, like today. I miss you too, you know, every day.”

 

She nodded, smiling at him. He paused, looked down at her lips, took a moment to smooth fingers over the cheek marked with lipstick, then turned his head down to gaze at her with mock disappointment. “Somethin’ wrong?” she asked innocently.

 

“You know this is impossible to get off,” he chided, not moving to start cleaning it away, hardly fighting the smile that tried to pull at his lips. “And that I’ll almost certainly forget about it, and get on my plane with lipstick on my face.”

 

“Good,” she replied, grinning. “Maybe that’s what I wanted anyways.”

 

He looked at her for a second, and then slowly started to grin himself. In one movement, he ducked his head down and rubbed his cheek against hers like a cat.

 

“No!” she protested, immediately erupting into laughter as he proceeded to smear the lipstick right back against her in retaliation, half-heartedly trying to squirm out of his hold. “Marcel! That’s not fair!”

 

“All’s fair in love and war, _mon cherie_  Marie,” he purred right back, not relenting, kissing her ear even as he continued to press their faces close together.

 

Her giggles didn’t cease, especially hearing him say her name, a weakness of hers, as he was well aware. “You’re _awful_ ,” she managed as he finally pulled back, grinning at her playfully in a way that made his face look decades younger, even despite scars and slight wrinkles and the hair graying at his temples.

 

“And I’m yours,” he replied easily, and kissed her once more, and didn't stop for quite some time.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [[they’re MARRIED]]


End file.
